This book paints a detailed picture of the commercial pilot lifestyle, from the struggle to pay for training to time spent down route to thoughts of retirement. Once a glamorous occupation, commercial flying is today more of a job than a vocation with many pilots working the maximum permissible hours for increasingly meagre rewards under evermore stressful conditions. Pilots talk candidly about acute and chronic fatigue, short-notice roster changes that leave them insufficiently rested, noisy and poorly serviced down-route hotels, long daily commutes to work, indebtedness, fear of losing their.